Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Abstract

THE records of science and philosophy during the past few years have been especially fertile in indications of a desire to place the relations of these two departments of inquiry upon a better footing than that of their former history. The desire has its source not in a spirit of concession but in a consciousness of necessity. A deeper criticism of conceptions with which in scientific investigation it is not possible to dispense, has brought several of its chief apostles face to face with fundamental obscurities and even contradictions which seem to cast doubt upon the validity of these conceptions. On the other hand philosophy has of late been coming into extensive contact with results obtained by scientific methods; and has been compelled either to modify its position, or go to the wall. The result is that attention has been increasingly directed to that critical examination of the nature of human knowledge, which claims on its negative side to have finally destroyed the old metaphysics and assigned definite limits to investigation, on its positive side to have exhibited these limits as arising out of the ultimate constitution of mind. The translation, just published, of the “Kritik der reinen Vernunft,” is one of the latest contributions to the literature of this subject. The cry of “Back to Kant” which has of late years been heard so frequently in this country and abroad, has been responded to by Prof. Max Müller with two well-appointed volumes. Of these the first contains the translator's preface, an “Historical Introduction” by Prof. Noiré, and a translation of those passages of the second edition of the “Kritik,” which differ from the corresponding passages in the first. The second volume consists of the translation of the first edition. The merits of the introductions and translations will be best estimated after the consideration—as far as the compass of a review will allow—of Kant's position.

Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

In Commemoration of the Centenary of its First Publication. Translated into English by F. Max Müller. With an Historical Introduction by Ludwing Noiré. Two Vols. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881.)